Day 1

Our first day of school this year is Thursday, August 18th. My Algebra class doesn't meet on Thursdays, so my first day with them will be Friday, August 19th.

The class starts with announcements over the PA (we meet third period, which is when announcements are scheduled). As they enter the room (I'll greet them at the door) they'll see these slides displayed on the projector. They'll find their seats, listen to the announcements, and hopefully navigate to our class website just fine.

I won't go over Course Expectations (because most of them will hopefully have already read through them), but I will ask if there are any questions. I will then spend just a minute or two on "Fisch Philosophy" in terms of what I want them to get out of the course.

We will then sample all the tech, working through many of the things on the Setup page that they've hopefully already setup, with a big emphasis on helping each other, and generally just getting used to some of the tools we'll be using. While we're doing that, we'll experience a little math along the way, too. (I don't have the sample openers created yet in Kahoot and Formative, nor have I created the sample Activity Builder activity in Desmos, but all of those will be Algebra-related while learning the basics of how the tool works.) We will then create a sample screencast (not Algebra-related, but showing them how to get an image onto their screen that they will need to know for their homework problem each night). If we manage to successfully get through all of this, it will be amazing, but we'll give it a shot.

At the end of class there is a link to "Assignment 0" which is all of the things I suggested they do before school starts, but that is due in a week if they haven't finished some or all of it. Since our first day is a Friday, they'll have a weekend before I'll see them again, and then Monday will be a more "typical" day.

While I wish there was a bit more mathematics on this first day, I'm worried that the tech could be overwhelming so I want to expose them to as much of it as possible right off the bat, have them help each other out, then of course they will see each piece over and over again as we work through lessons each day. Right now, however, with our first class day being on a Friday, this is my best guess of what I'd like to do with this day. I'm still debating whether this is a good idea, or whether I want to introduce one thing at a time over the course of a week or so, so feedback is appreciated.